Judging Shaw

Reviews / Votes

'excellent and very attractively presented [...] timely, erudite and highly entertaining exploration of an extraordinary life' -- Eleanor Fitzsimons * Judging Shaw review * '[A] handsome, lavishly illustrated book'. -- Tony Canavan * First Flush * Fintan O'Toole has used mostly primary works with a stunning freshness, often putting well-known passages from Shaw into new contexts that make them really come alive, in a way that gives you the sense that Shaw is still here working on our contemporary problems, or at least should be. O'Toole makes it very clear that he was motivated to write this book precisely because, realizing that the Victorian/Gilded Age Shaw attacked with such vehemence and effectiveness has made a comeback, he argues that Shaw is never more needed than he is today. Shaw was instrumental in draining this swamp once, so maybe he can help us do it again'. -- R. F. Dietrich 'The book [...] explore[s] the life and work of Shaw in all its vicissitudes. O'Toole brings him to life in such a way that is as entertaining as it is enlightening. Outside of O'Toole's wonderful narrative, the book is a handsome production. The Royal Irish Academy have added another firm affirmation that the book is far from dead. Superbly designed with a wide variety of fascinating illustrations, it is an ideal gift for the Booklover'. -- Des Kenny 'There are other books on Shaw and there will be more; but none will be more Shavian than this one. [...] Judging Shaw is an exhilarating read. Fintan O'Toole has ranged impressively over the many plays and their prefaces, the letters, music and theatre criticism, political speeches and articles, to find the quotations from Shaw's own prose relevant to his arguments. [...] The book is a brilliant Shavian polemic and a considerable achievement. Shaw may never again occupy the position of global influence he enjoyed on his death in 1950. But Fintan O'Toole persuades us that GBS still has radical and pertinent insights to offer into the glaring inequities of life in the twenty-first century'. -- Anthony Roche * Judging Fintan Judging Shaw * 'O'Toole's book is a remarkable piece of work, superbly designed and produced by Fidelma Slattery, with facsimiles of manuscripts and letters, cartoons and designs, and rare and marvelously reproduced photographs (many taken by Shaw himself) that give a kaleidoscopic impression of the impact of the great man on his world. [... A]n [...] admirable production, which if nothing else restores Shaw to his rightful place as one of the great prose writers of his time-in all of English literature, perhaps-and one of the most provocative thinkers'. -- Simon Callow * Superman in Tweeds * 'entertaining, insightful and wonderfully produced'. -- Todd McEwen, * Review: Judging Shaw: The Radicalism of GBS, by Fintan O'Toole * 'superbly perceptive study [...] a handsome tribute from one of Ireland's leading intellectuals to one of his mightiest forebears'. -- Terry Eagleton * A Row of Shaws *